


No Barriers

by themadmage



Series: themadmage's Harry Potter one-shots and standalones [10]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: BAMF Hermione Granger, Buried Alive, Costume Parties & Masquerades, Exes, F/M, Halloween, Insecurity, Jealousy, Kidnapping, Male Friendship, Marriage Proposal, Patronus, Rescue Missions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-10
Updated: 2019-10-10
Packaged: 2020-11-28 21:47:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,591
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20973563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themadmage/pseuds/themadmage
Summary: Harry's plan to propose to Hermione at the Ministry's Halloween Masque is derailed when Hermione doesn't arrive as expected. Hermione's plan to be proposed to by Harry is derailed when she's kidnapped from her flat just before the Ministry's Halloween Masque.“Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.”~Maya Angelou.





	No Barriers

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [HalloweenHarmonyComp2019](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/HalloweenHarmonyComp2019) collection. 

> This piece was written for Harmony & Co’s Halloween Competition, Double Double Toil and Trouble. All canon characters, plots, dialogue, and situations from the Harry Potter series belongs to JK Rowling. I am not profiting from this work. Thank you to my alpha/betas, bklh and whisperedmemories, for all their help!
> 
> Prompt in end notes.

Hermione sat at the vanity in her bedroom, unable to keep a pleased smile off her face as she put the finishing touches on her costume for the Ministry’s annual Halloween Masque that night. Initially she had planned on going as Elphaba, better known as the Wicked Witch of the West. That was, however, before she’d heard the rumors of Harry’s plan.

The fact that Harry planned to propose was currently the worst-kept secret in the magical world. Jewellers, after all, weren’t required to take any privacy oaths the way Healers were, even if they did serve celebrity clients. And in all honesty, the jeweller had probably only told one or two people. But once they’d heard that _ Harry Potter _ had bought an _ engagement ring_, no one could resist sharing.

Only those who actually knew the couple had suspected when Harry might give her the ring, but Hermione was fairly certain it would be tonight. While their friends would say that they’d already been dating for ages without realizing, three years ago today had been their first _ official _ date. They’d gone to the Halloween Masque dressed as each other, wearing “Golden Trio” costumes that several shops had started carrying due to the fifth anniversary of the end of the war. 

And so, given the significance of the date, Hermione had decided to forgo her Elphaba costume at the last minute. Instead, she was dressed as Glinda the Good Witch. The costume maintained a bit of tongue-in-cheek humor in dressing as a fictional witch, but she wouldn’t receive her engagement ring while her skin was charmed _ green. _

With a final check in the mirror, Hermione smoothed out the layers of pink skirt that surrounded her and was preparing to apparate when the wards on her flat alerted her to someone’s presence. She barely had time to wonder if Harry had come to meet her instead of waiting in their usual spot when an odd smell filled the air and Hermione’s world went black.

* * *

Harry stood under an archway halfway between the apparition point and the entrance to the Ministry Ballroom. His tin man costume, which he’d chosen after Hermione told him she’d be dressing as someone from The Wizard of Oz, shined in the uneven lighting coming from the open ballroom door. He checked the time again, confirming what he already knew.

It was a quarter past eight. Hermione was late.

This concerned Harry, because Hermione was the most fastidious scheduler he knew. She hated to be late, so she always gave herself plenty of time to prepare for anything. For her to be a full fifteen minutes late, something had to have happened. Either something important which couldn’t wait, or something disastrous.

A hand clapping down on Harry’s shoulder startled him out of his thoughts. “She’ll be here soon, mate,” Ron said to him cheerfully. Harry hadn’t even noticed his friend approach, despite the fact that the redhead was dressed as a giant cheeseburger. Ron always avoided the fancier costumes most people wore to the Masque.

“This isn’t like her,” Harry protested softly.

“I’m sure she just got caught up in a case,” Ron reassured Harry. “You know how it’s been since her last promotion.”

Harry took a deep breath and relaxed as he nodded. That was entirely possible. While Hermione still hated to be late, she’d been promoted to the head of the DMLE’s prosecutor’s office just three weeks ago. She was still learning how to balance the increase in cases that came across her desk at the last moment, as well as the additional supervisory duties she had. 

She was ecstatic about the promotion. Hermione was now in a position which answered only to the Director of the DMLE and the Minister’s office, despite her youth. Harry was as excited for her as she was. She’d risen through the ranks in the Ministry at an astronomical rate, attaining this position in just seven years. Her own work ethic and others' appreciation of her efforts during the war ensured her success. No one expected this to stop, though the smaller number of positions this high on the ladder demanded some slowdown. 

Harry couldn’t wait for the day that Hermione’s star outshone his. He could already imagine the day when _ she _ had to introduce _ him_, instead of the other way around. 

Within Britain, however, that day was a long time coming. Not because Hermione wasn’t successful and well-known, but because British magical society continued to be unduly obsessed with him. They’d stuck him with another overblown, unwelcome press moniker following the Battle of Hogwarts, and nothing would sway their interest. The rumors sweeping the country about the engagement ring he’d purchased were proof.

Harry lived a quiet life. He had since the end of the war. While Hermione had gone to Hogwarts for an offered eighth year and Ron had accepted the Ministry’s offer for fast-tracked Auror training, Harry had looked for a place to rest.

Luna had found it for him. Thestral herds had been discovered in droves after the war. The Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures had been looking to hire caretakers for them, to ensure that the herds were healthy and that they didn’t move into more highly populated areas. While there was no shortage of people who could see thestrals following the war, few of them wanted to be reminded of their lost loved ones each day as they observed and catalogued the skeletal beasts.

It had been difficult for Harry, at first, but he’d found that facing everything head-on had helped him to process his grief. Before long, Harry was comfortably spending his days in magical forests counting foals and surveying food sources, meeting Luna for tea on Sundays to discuss each others’ herds, and cheering his friends’ successes on happily from the sidelines.

Hermione’s successes, especially. Upon graduating, she’d gotten a clerking job for the DMLE while studying for a mastery in magical law. As soon as she’d earned her mastery, she’d begun working as a prosecutor and climbing the ranks within the department. All along, she’d used her spare time to draft and lobby for legislation to protect and built up the many aspects of its society that magical Britain had previously been content to ignore.

Whatever it was that had caught Hermione's attention and made her late, Harry didn’t mind waiting for her.

* * *

Hermione groaned as she became aware of a fierce headache, and hesitantly opened her eyes. Then she closed and opened them again, before raising a hand to her face to check that her eyelids were functioning as expected. 

Her hand, however, hit on rough wood immediately to her side, and again above her. Which explained why she couldn’t see anything. 

Once Hermione’s eyes adjusted to the level of darkness, she was able to confirm that she was completely encased in a wooden box, just large enough for her body. The thick skirt of her dress had been rumpled and crushed, and still filled the box - the _ casket _\- to the point where she couldn’t move her legs. 

Whoever had _ buried her alive _ was going to regret it, as soon as Hermione had freed herself. 

A cursory check for her wand revealed nothing, which wasn't a surprise. Still, as unlikely as it was that she’d have been able to keep it, she’d been unwilling to _ assume_. Luckily, Hermione had developed a limited repertoire of wandless magic since the war. 

With a muttered invective, she began yanking several layers of her skirt up over her head to prevent inhalation of dirt while she unburied herself. Hermione had received several books from her parents on _ survival for the adventurous _ when she’d started Hogwarts. The books had been a joke, mostly. They’d already served her well during the year when she and her friends had lived in a tent, though, and they’d serve her well again here. 

Once her airways were protected at the cost of her dress, Hermione tore off several more layers of tulle to wrap her hand in, and began the process of punching through the lid of her underground prison and digging her way out.

* * *

Harry’s worry had been temporarily eased by Ron’s suggestions, but it was back in full force. It was now nearly nine o'clock, at which point Hermione would be a full hour late, and he hadn’t heard a word from her. 

“If she got caught up in a case, someone would have sent her home because of the ball.” Harry said to Ron, pacing back and forth in his and Hermione’s meeting place. Ron opened his mouth to reply, but Harry barreled on without noticing. “She’d have sent a message if she were going to be late, even if it was just a few minutes.”

“Yeah, but she’s-”

“She’s dumping me.” Harry said, stopping his pacing in his tracks with a heavy finality.

“What? Mate, that’s ridiculous.” 

“Is it? Everyone in Britain knows that I’m proposing! And I’ve gone and decided to do it on Halloween, despite the fact that this day has been _ cursed _for my whole life! She heard about the ring, and instead of telling me ‘no’, she’s just not coming. She doesn’t want to be embarrassed in front of everyone - the press would take pictures, why did I think I should propose in public, anyways?”

Neville, impressively dressed as Sir Nicholas de Mimsy-Porpington just before he became Nearly Headless Nick, had come up to the pair just in time to watch Harry sink to the ground against the wall. “Still no sign of Hermione, then?” he asked Ron.

“Not yet.”

“Bad things happen on Halloween,” Harry mumbled. “And people leave me. My parents.” He gestured towards Ron. “It was Halloween when you left us mate, and when Ginny dumped me after the war - on Halloween - I lost the whole Weasley family for _ months_. Lost her friendship forever.”

Both men still standing quickly resigned themselves to working Harry through this sudden resurgence of his abandonment issues as quickly as possible, and joined him on the floor.

“She wouldn’t just do that to you, Harry,” Ron told him seriously. “Think of all of the effort that Hermione has put into making Halloween better for you.” Harry gave his friend a look that clearly communicated how much he didn’t want to do that, but Ron didn’t budge. “Even if she was planning on saying no, the rumors about the ring have been going around since before her promotion. She’s had plenty of time to say something privately if she wanted to avoid a public scene.”

Reluctantly, Harry nodded. Hermione was pragmatic, and not a cruel person. 

“And that’s a big ‘if’,” Neville cut in. “‘_ If _ she was planning on saying no.’ You and Hermione have the kind of relationship that the rest of us wish for. Anyone could see that.”

* * *

Hermione had broken through the lid of the casket and was digging her way out to fresh air, making heavy use of vanishing charms. The wooden casket had been too solid for her to vanish wandlessly, but she could manage a bit more than a fistful of dirt at a time without straining herself. 

She cursed until she was blue in the face at how long it was taking. Cursing wasn’t a habit she indulged in often, and she’d done quite a bit of it since waking up, but if being made late to her own engagement because she was _ entombed _didn’t call for strong language then she didn’t know what would. 

There was nothing to be done about the rate she was moving. Hermione couldn’t risk exhausting herself when the person who’d buried her might still be nearby. She couldn’t apparate without a wand, so she’d be stranded until she either found hers or found another way to travel.

* * *

“Okay, so she probably isn’t standing me up,” Harry admitted, standing up from the floor with a sheepish expression. “But she’s over an hour late now without a word. Something has to be wrong.” The other two didn’t argue, and Harry paused. “You guys know she gets threats, because of the laws she pushes for and how quickly she’s progressed in the DMLE, right?”

“Not to mention her actions during the war,” Neville added helpfully.

“Right.” Harry looked like he didn’t consider it helpful before a familiar expression of resolve settled on his features. “We’ve got to find her, then. She might need help.”

* * *

After nearly thirty minutes of digging and vanishing, Hermione finally broke free into the open air. A wandless cutting charm made short work of the knotted tulle around her head. The skirt was ruined by now, regardless. The whole costume was wrinkled from being shoved into a casket, torn from catching on wood splinters, and covered in dirt. Her hair, which she’d spent an hour charming, was just as ruined. Hermione would never be the type to be overly concerned with her hair, but on the occasions when she decided to spend the time on it she did _ not _appreciate having her efforts ruined. 

Or being _kidnapped and_ _buried alive_, but that was a far more specific grievance. 

Her early grave seemed to be in the yard of a small countryside cottage. She was still somewhere in Britain, based on the weather and lack of sunlight, but didn’t recognize her surroundings beyond that. 

There were no city lights within sight, and apparition was still not viable. An attempt to cast her patronus produced only a bit of mist. Impressive, without a wand, but not adequate given the situation. She’d have to practice that when she got through this, just in case she were ever stranded without her wand again. 

Without any other option, Hermione started towards the cottage. Hopefully it would be empty, and have a floo. 

The interior of the cottage was nearly as filthy as Grimmauld Place had been the first time Hermione saw it. A thick layer of dust muffled her footsteps. There were disturbances in the dust, however, so someone had been here recently. Hermione began casting silencing charms on her feet and the hinges of doors to mask her movements further, in case her captor was here. 

Though necessary, the lack of sound was deeply unsettling.

* * *

Luna drifted over just as Harry was shifting into rescue mode, dressed as a hybrid of a unicorn and a nargle. Harry could only identify her as such because they’d discussed their costumes for the Masque at last Sunday’s tea. Quickly, Harry explained the situation. Just as he was about to start working on a plan to find Hermione, however, Ron cut him off.

“Mate, are you sure- I mean, you’re _ sure _this isn’t going to end up being like when we went to rescue Sirius, right?”

Harry turned a hard look on Ron. “It’s been eight years since Voldemort has been able to fuck with my mind, Ron. And besides, you and Neville both agreed that something had to be wrong.”

“I know! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to suggest anything. It’s just-” he gestured around the four of them. “It’s the same group, minus a couple people. Had a moment of deja vu.”

“Not to doubt you too, Harry,” Neville said cautiously as Harry turned to look at him, “But have you actually tried contacting Hermione? I know you haven’t heard from her, but it goes both ways.”

Harry blushed, anger draining from his face. “Er- no. No I haven’t.”

“Alright,” Neville said with a sigh. “Before we get any further in planning a rescue mission, let’s floo her flat and see if she’s there.”

The flat was empty, but there was no sign that anything had _ happened _there, either. Certainly, there were no signs of a struggle, and Harry couldn’t imagine Hermione would go down without a fight. “Maybe we just missed her?” Ron asked tentatively. “She left, just as we showed up, and now she’s at the Ministry thinking that Harry was even later than her?”

“That doesn’t seem terribly likely,” Luna said. The oddity of _Luna_ decrying something as unlikely caused Ron to deflate.

“Send your patronus,” Neville suggested.

Harry nodded, and silently cast the charm. Instead of a stag, however, the silver mist coalesced into an equally familiar but unexpected form. Harry looked at the otter for a moment as if the patronus had betrayed him. His stag patronus had felt like a connection to his family ever since Remus had looked at it for the first time and called it Prongs. But, Harry thought, he no longer thought about being with his parents when he cast his patronus. He might not even see them, if he ever had another chance to look into the Mirror of Erised. He thought of Hermione, and the way that the light shone on her hair when it first came through the window in the morning, and the way that she would chew on her lower lip while deep in thought. 

He looked forward to building a family with Hermione now, and as soon as she was found he would be able to take the first official step. So he had to find her.

* * *

Hermione hadn’t found anything or anyone yet as she moved slowly through the eerie silence. The fireplace hadn’t had any floo powder, leaving her unsure of what she was looking for. A spare wand would be wonderful, but she wasn’t holding her breath. 

A rush of silver burst through the wall, and Hermione stiffened. Stealth was done, then. If whoever had been here before her hadn’t left, they’d know about each other soon enough.

“Hermione, where are you? I’m really worried.”

The otter with Harry’s voice made her smile a bit, despite herself, before a man’s muffled shouts from two rooms over jolted her back to the situation at hand. She couldn’t decipher his words, and was fairly certain he hadn’t spoken in English, but she didn’t need to know what he’d said to understand that she was in trouble. Hermione quickly looked around the kitchen she’d been poking through, and spotted a copper pan she’d previously dismissed as useless. The metal would reflect a spell sent at her, if she were attacked again, and free up her casting for offense. 

Not one to wait for danger to come to her, Hermione advanced towards the shouting.

Hermione burst through a door, and nearly froze in shock at the sight of Viktor Krum standing over a partially drawn ritual circle. The ruddy color of the circle and the fact that Viktor’s hand was bleeding freely didn’t suggest anything good. Blood magic was not known to be used for noble purposes.

But _ Viktor _\- when Ron and Hermione had realized that their post-war romance wasn’t meant to last, she had tried again with the Bulgarian who had taken her to her first ball. They’d dated for nearly a year, before it had ended badly. But Viktor had never seemed like the violent type, and they’d exchanged letters on special occasions after they’d had some time to heal. He’d sent her a congratulatory letter for her latest promotion - she’d just gotten it last week.

“What are you _ doing _?”

“Preparing,” he replied gruffly. “How did you get free?”

Hermione opened her mouth to answer, and then realized that he’d just confirmed himself as her captor. She wasn’t about to stand here and have a conversation with him until he decided to knock her out again. She reached out with her right hand, her left holding the pan protectively in front of herself. “_ Accio _ my wand!”

The wand clattered against wood, apparently too well-secured to be summoned, and Viktor laughed derisively at her before throwing a sickly yellow spell.

* * *

“I have no idea where to start looking,” Harry said when Hermione didn’t respond to his message. “The last time I needed to foil a plot, Voldemort’s mind was still connected to my scar.”

“We should be starting in the same place that everyone starts when there’s trouble,” Ron answered him. “By contacting the Aurors!”

“It’s the night of the Masque, the only Aurors on duty are the new recruits who couldn’t get out of it,” Harry argued back. “They’re not prepared to handle a high profile abduction case! Besides,” he added after a pause. “You’re an Auror. That’s better odds than we’ve ever had before. So what would you do, if you were on duty, and we contacted the Aurors?”

Ron’s voice rose. “That’s not how it works! Working without an official investigation, I could lose my job.”

“Hermione could lose her _ life_!” Harry shouted, going a bit red in the face.

Ron stopped, stricken. “We’d start by running crime scene diagnostics,” he said, much more quietly, after a few moments to recover. “Her flat is the first place we’d want to check, if we didn’t know where she was taken from, so I’ll get started on it.”

Harry nodded tightly, and watched Ron work. After a few minutes, the waiting got to be too much. “Have you found anything?”

“I haven’t finished running the spells,” Ron shot back. “Usually, there are two Aurors doing this part to speed it up. You’ll just have to be patient.”

Harry sighed, and started pacing. Hoping to feel useful, Harry sent his patronus to Hermione again with words of encouragement. Luna smiled, and waved her own wand.

* * *

Hermione was ducking and dodging what spells she could, and reflecting the rest. The rounded bottom of the pan made it difficult to aim, or she’d be trying harder to hit Viktor with his own spells. Instead, she fired off her best wandless spells in quick succession. Disarming charms were most useful for a fight, and she peppered them with cutting charms and blasting curses. 

Viktor was, unfortunately, at least as good at dodging as Hermione.

The fight had gone on for several minutes without either side landing a spell, when another streak of silver burst through the wall. “We’re coming for you, Hermione,” Harry’s otter said to her. “Hang in there, wherever you are.”

“You expect,” Viktor said as he fired another spell and dodged one of hers. “That I vill send you congratulations, ven you marry him?” Another curse. “You should be marrying _ me._”

Hermione tightened her jaw, but didn’t respond. She was fighting at a disadvantage already. Any response she would have made, though, would have been cut off by the arrival of a silver hare. “We will see you soon, Hermione,” Luna’s dreamy voice said through it. Soon after, a silver badger from Neville was telling Hermione that Ron was searching her flat.

Each patronus distracted the combatants equally. While they bolstered Hermione, however, they angered Viktor. And Viktor’s anger made him thankfully, wonderfully sloppy.

The silver animals showed themselves again every minute or so - Harry must be going spare. Finally, while a badger was fading away just for another otter to sweep in, a blasting curse connected with Viktor’s knee. Not a moment too soon, given how exhausted Hermione had become. Viktor had dropped to the floor, and could no longer dodge. He cast a shield, but rather than attempt the disarming charm again, Hermione summoned his wand from his loosened grip. The summoning charm could pass through shields and barriers without issue, and his wand was neatly in her hand in seconds. 

Hermione stunned Viktor with his own wand. Then, because she wasn’t sure how long he would stay unconscious and she’d already proven what one could manage if they woke up wandless, she sent another blasting curse at his other kneecap. The bludgeoning hex between the legs was revenge. Binding him in ropes, almost an afterthought. 

Hermione then found her own wand, sent a low-risk alert to the DMLE, and dropped Viktor’s wand in two pieces next to his prone form.

* * *

“The last apparition trace out of the flat was to the Ministry,” Ron told his friends, just as Harry finished sending another patronus. “Which means that, either, we really did just miss her and she’s ignoring your messages or, more likely, the person who took her left by a means I can’t track on my own. Still, the Ministry is the only lead we have, so we’ll go back there and see if there’s any evidence to be found.”

Harry tried to protest, but Ron was already gone in a flash of green flames. Harry, Neville, and Luna followed to see Ron trying to surreptitiously run the same scans in the Ministry atrium. Before Harry could comment, a loud crack drew his attention to the apparition point, where Hermione had just appeared.

The four would-be rescuers gaped at Hermione as she strode towards them, casting cleaning and repairing charms over every inch of her body. Her face was tight with irritation until she’d finished, at which point she relaxed and smiled at her friends’ faces. “What? I’m a competent witch. Just because I dug myself out of a shallow grave tonight, there’s no reason I need to _ look _like it.”

Harry sputtered. “You- a _ what?_”

“Don’t worry about it,” she said, patting him mock-condescendingly on the hand. “It’s all taken care of.”

Unsurprisingly, none of them knew what to say to that. Harry and Ron both continued to gape openly, while Luna nodded serenely as if this was entirely expected. Neville appeared to crack under the pressure of the rapidly changing moods, and dissolved into hysterical laughter. 

“Really,” she said once he’d collected himself. “It’s all taken care of. I subdued Viktor _heavily_ and sent an alert to the Aurors to have him collected and taken into custody. Apparently, he still held a candle for me and I hadn't realized. I’ll file the full report tomorrow.”

Harry finally recovered from the shock and pulled Hermione close to his chest. “I was so worried about you,” he whispered into her hair. 

“I know,” she said, not unkindly. “But the patroni helped.”

“How did he even get the better of you? Your flat looked clean, like you left without a fight.”

“Some sort of airborne potion,” Hermione admitted with a _harrumph_. “It knocked me out before I could even identify him.”

Harry released Hermione from his embrace, and spoke in a rough voice. “I had a whole plan how to do this, you know.” Hermione smiled. “It was going to be very romantic. There was dancing involved, and I wasn’t going to complain about it at all. I had a speech. But- I can’t wait another moment.”

Slowly, Harry dropped to one knee and pulled out the ring box in his pocket. Ron, Neville, and Luna faded into the background for the couple as Harry asked, “Will you marry me?”

Hermione smiled brightly, and swiped away a tear that threatened to fall. In lieu of a verbal answer, she plucked the ring from the open box and put it on her own finger before pulling Harry to his feet and into a kiss. 

“You know,” she told him when they broke apart, “None of the rumors I heard gave a believable picture of the ring you’d chosen. I’d have said yes regardless of what it looked like, but it left me very curious.”

She took a moment to look at her hand and the ring in question, which was made from two small strands of metal that had been twirled loosely together. One strand was plain, while the other was lined with small diamonds. Hesitantly, Harry asked “Do you like it?”

“It’s perfect,” Hermione said genuinely, as she linked her arm with Harry’s. “Now, about that dance.”

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt:
> 
> The Ministry's annual Halloween Masque was the site of Harry and Hermione's first official date three years ago. Now Harry thinks it's the PERFECT place to propose to her. A jealous ex-lover has different plans, and when the time comes for the big night, Hermione is nowhere to be found.
> 
> (Ex-lover could be EITHER Harry's OR Hermione's.)


End file.
